The former AOL employee arrested for stealing and then selling to spammers AOL’s list of 92 million email addresses found himself facing 15 months of prison time, or about one third of a second for every screen name purloined. Federal guidelines provided for a sentence of up to two years. CNET reports that the judge has yet to rule on restitution (to AOL, not to the owners of the email accounts), but that he suggested a figure of around $84,000.

MarketingVOX reported last summer that the initial sale of the list to spammers garnered $100,000 (and was resold again for $52,000) - commanding the embarrassingly low price of $0.00056 per name. At the time, prosecutors said that the defendant faced fines approaching $250,000.